For Once I didn't Disengage
by Charming Visions
Summary: Roger POV after Mimi's death, one-shot. R for cursing.


Disclaimer: I don't own Rent.  
  
It's raining outside. No, not raining, it's pouring. Sheets of white are falling from the sky and slapping against the sidewalks. Electric light flashes once, then twice, and is soon followed by a growl emitted from the skies above. Down below people are running from direction trying to reach their closet destination across the street. Some are holding dark black umbrellas, others are holding magazines and newspapers trying in vain to stop the obscene rain from ruining their immaculate appearance. Today seems totally and inexplicably different from yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that. Today, the skies are crying, whereas yesterday, the skies seemed perfectly content. Perfectly content on the day of my girlfriend's funeral. The sun even shown the morning I had woken up with her dead. So what poor soul has died today to cause the entire world to mourn? Some rich man who can no longer flaunt his wealth. Some stuck up white woman who can no longer cause envy from other ladies alike? Screw the fact that someone who actually had something to give died. Mourn your pretty rich men and women who care for nothing more than their own fucking appearance and laugh in the face of those who dared not to disengage themselves from the real world by following the leads of those who wallow in the world of material vices.  
  
Before Mimi broke through my frozen barriers, I couldn't imagine having another woman in my life. I was a man in his early twenties who looked for nothing more than the impending death. I am a man with AIDS and I am a man who has lost twice. Now that Mimi is gone, I can't imagine my future without her. Selfishly, I had always hoped that I would go first, so that I wouldn't be in this position now. The position of which I am dying alone, and my friends pity me. I wanted Mimi to be with me when I took my last breath, I wanted her to be with me when I closed my eyes for the final time, and I wanted her to hold my hand through it all. Instead, I watched her close her eyes for a final time, I heard her last breath, and I held her through it all. What is really shitty, is that I've done that twice. The first time, she was given back to me, this time, she wasn't.  
  
As I sit here, my head against the cool glass, I begin to wonder what the worth of it all is. What is my measure of a man, and have I fulfilled it? I've disappointed people too many times to count. What can one really expect though from an ex-junkie, heading for death, with minor detours of depression. My friends are worried about me. Mark knows that I will once again close into myself, and he has tried hard to stop that from happening, not that it matters, all of his attempts are failed. In all honesty, I don't want to feel again. I don't want the world to know of Roger Davis anymore, it's already taken so much from me. I hate feeling like some marionette at the hands of a sadistic puppeteer. That everything is being kept from me for some shitty reason. That all my movements are calculated, and whenever I plan to divert from this fucking path, there is someone one step ahead of me, forcing me back onto the path of a shitty life.  
  
Did I screw up so much that I deserve all of this? Did I indulge myself too damn much in my teenage years that now it's the time to reap what I don't believe I've sown. Okay fine, I understand that I'm a screw up. What the hell else is new. I try not to think back and "what-if" my way through my past. Such as, "What if I wasn't a junkie?" or "What if I hadn't met April?" "What if I had been something more, or someone more like Mark?" I can't blame April for my current state. I just blame her for how I found out. The only outcome of my relationship with April was this...a dead girlfriend who slit her own damn wrists in my bathtub, and a virus that has left me vulnerable to everything. I don't exactly know who the one to contract HIV first was. We both did some things I regret now, but both of us are guilty I suppose. When I found April, everything shut down. Mark jokes about it and calls it the "dark ages" I, however, find nothing amusing about those years. Sure I cleaned up, I really didn't have a choice. Then Mimi entered and suddenly things began to look up.  
  
No matter how hard I tried to push her away, she was still there, pushing me and prodding me to open up. I guess I finally became too much, but I eventually ended up running away, as usual, only this time I returned only to find my girlfriend on the verge of death. Angel sent her back to me though, I'd like to think. I think she believed that Mimi and I deserved a few more months together. And a few months turned into about six, six of the best months of my life. As horribly cliché as it sounds, for once I knew what it was to love without regret. For once I didn't live in fear, and for once everyone saw the Roger Davis everyone had yearned to see. Mimi eventually grew worse and worse, and it pained me to look at her. Mimi was always strong but she eventually became a weak shell of her physical self. Her mind stayed the same though, and I thank God for that. I believe I would have broken long before I did if she hadn't.  
  
I know she knew when she was going to die, and from the way her eyes flickered, I knew too. She didn't let on, I just knew how to read her. I didn't change though, I stayed how I always was, I just wanted her to be happy, and I knew she was. I woke up one morning, and she was gone, but for the first time in many weeks, she looked content. She wasn't in discomfort, and I guess I'm thankful for that. But now I'm willing to admit that I'm scared. I saw Mimi, I saw her cringe, groan, shake, and cough, but she had me. Who will I have? Mark? It isn't the same. Maureen? I love her to death, but I don't want my last moments to be that of some damn play for her. Joanne? I just can't picture it. As for Collins? Well, he looks like he is soon ready to follow. No one knows this, but Collins and I have had some pretty intense conversations. Collins hasn't been the same since Angel's death. He puts on the same façade that I put on in front of people, he however is far better at hiding it than I am. He's ready to go. He wants to go. As do I.  
  
I guess I'm sounding like some self-wallowing bastard, but it's hard enough to watch the world around you die without knowing that whatever pain you feel now will only end with a death that seems to take its own sweet time. I just wonder how many people out there feel the same as I do. Will people be remembered as who they are, or as whom the world perceived them as. Will we all be remembered individually, or just another statistic to the mortality rate of AIDS victims per year. I don't dare pretend that my life has been magically changed upon the revelation of AIDS from when I was a stupid teenager. I'm still that stupid jackass. Now, I'm just a jackass whom, for one single moment, had something better for them than bitterness. It's ironic right? That I finally released my grips from one drug only to be forced on depending onto another. Life is just full of quirky ironic situations isn't it?  
  
I just constantly feel betrayed by everything surrounding me. By Mimi for dying, by my body for not letting me die, by life for forcing me to face the disgraceful reality that I live, and by my remaining friends for daring to believe that they understand. I do feel remorse for Mark though. He was extremely close to all of us, and in all honesty, Angel, Collins, Mimi, and I, are his family. Sure he's friends with Maureen, even more so with Joanne, but how close can you expect a man to be with his ex girlfriend and his lesbian lover. Mark has watched all of us die, and I know he's on the verge of breaking, and I also know that he won't break until after my death. I don't want him to feel alone and abandoned, but he already does. So perhaps he does understand, because even though he will survive, he's dying much more quickly than I am.  
  
The sky has stopped pouring, the clouds are only drizzling now. The lightening has moved on, and so has the thunder. But until the day I die, I will sit here, unmoving and waiting. Mark will come into my room as he has before to make sure I'm still moving, and my guitar in the corner will continue to gather dust. I've given up, and it's started. Life will continue to play it's damn games, yet I won't. While Mimi was in my life, I didn't disengage, I had reasons to live, but now she's gone. My denial has faded, and I am once again the self-enclosed Roger. Seeing the world as Mark does. Through a camera, and not my own two eyes.  
  
**A/N: If that was bad, I apologize. I plan to write one more about Roger, maybe I'll post next weekend, and then I will hopefully write one with Maureen and Collins. Please review. And also...read Mark's POV: And I'm Alone, and Mimi's POV: Will I Wake Tomorrow.**


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